Mean Miss of Wizard of Oz / SAT 9-1-18 / Overhyped event in slang / Smallest country in mainland africa / Frazzled commuter's comment / Bisector of Fertile Crescent / road runners' race classification / Toon with middle initial

Constructor: Randolph Ross

Relative difficulty: Medium-ish (8:18)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: William P. BARR (30D: Attorney general before Reno) —

William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as the 77th Attorney General of the United States. As a member of the Republican Party, Barr served as Attorney General from 1991 to 1993 during the administration of President George H. W. Bush.

Puzzle has no sense of fun, and what sense it tried to have (NOTHING BURGER) is a phrase I find stupid and repulsive—like, my least favorite slang of this decade. It's dumb political talk. Stupid. Inane. Generally used by people trying to downplay something genuinely terrible. Just say "overhyped event," it's so much nicer. TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT has a certain quaint ring to it. NOTHING BURGER just sounds like something someone barfed up. Slop. I cannot overstate how much I hate the phrase on an aesthetic level. It's ugly, and when you use it, you're ugly. Moving on. APERY!? Ugh. ME DO? Up there with the stupid BURGER for most off-putting answer. The good stuff here is just "good" in the sense of solid, sturdy, and some of that gets mucked up with bad cluing. What is it with the NYT and its name-droppy intellectualism fetish? Mensa this mensa that ... and then this CONAN O'BRIEN clue (31A: Longtime talk show host with a degree from Harvard). Ooooh lala, Hah-vahd. It's such a weak, narrow way to clue someone who is so talented and accomplished. Lots of complete assholes have Ivy League degrees. Who cares? Moving on again: What is a capital-R Road Runner? How on earth would I know that their "race classification" is TEN MILE? Garbage fill, garbage clue. BARR was Attorney General for about 8 minutes when I was in my early 20s. Not exactly puzzle-worthy. I want to say same about STIMSON, but I'm willing to bet that's not true and just chalk up my ignorance to my second-rate education and third-rate mind. ME DO not know Secretaries of (lowercase "w"?) war.


The phrases here are so stilted. HEAVENS, CAN IT BE that the puzzle HATH NE'ER considered that it NEED NOT project such an OLDSTER vibe? It MISDOES its APERY, forsooth. WILE E!? The [Toon with a middle initial] is WILE E. COYOTE. I think you meant [Toon name part that contains an initial]. The toon is the full name of the toon, not the first name and middle initial. UNOS is a bad plural. OLES is a bad plural. Hard to think of a clue / answer that I liked both in clue and answer. Maybe CONTORTIONIST (15D: One who gets bent out of shape). Is SCOTS a "language"? I thought it was more a dialect. Hmm. This is from wikipedia:

A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards the Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals being a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language" but it also found that "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)"

So there's that. I had the most trouble in the NW, where STIMSON was unknown and 6D: Any minute was ANON for a bit and "IT'S A ZOO" just didn't compute. Anyone in a crowded area might say that. "Frazzled commuter" had me thinking the comment was going to be something about a STOP. "OUR STOP?!" I dunno. Whole corner was rough for me. Rest of the puzzle was more tractable. Looking back, it's clear that NOTHING BURGER complete drained any pleasure I might've had right out of this solving experience. MEDO didn't help.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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